Goal setting is extremely powerful and can have a dramatic impact on your personal finances, productivity, career, relationships, health and life. Motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, often admonished salespeople to set goals to achieve their peak performances. In fact, he reportedly went as far as saying “a goal properly set is halfway reached.” However, sometimes setting large lofty goals may seem like a waste of time, or worst. After all, shouldn’t goals have a strong basis in reality? Let’s delve into this issue. Here are 4 reasons you should set unrealistically high financial goals.

Setting Unrealistically High Goals Raises Your Performance to the Level of Expectation.

When you are around the best, read about the best, think about the best, eventually you begin to expect the best in your own life. Even if it is entirely subconscious, there’s something that will click internally and begin to move you towards excellence. This is why your associations matter. Your environment influences your expectations about yourself. How many would-be entrepreneurs, scientists, physicians, and peacemakers have failed to realize an authentic utilization of their gifts, personalities and passions because they never became aware that THEY could do great things. Greatness was never modeled by their associations. Eagles who hang out with chickens too long may forget how to fly! By setting phenomenal goals, you are intentionally focusing on the best, and your behavior will follow suit.

Setting Unrealistically High Goals Encourages You To Draw On Your Creativity

Success for you is dependant on your capacity to believe.

If you are placed in a situation that forces you to draw on dormant potential, your performance will change accordingly. In addition to normal goals, I personally advocate setting stretch goals: goals that will deliberately pull one out of his comfort zone. With respect to finances, I have seen people adopt this in various ways, such as a recent pledge by many online bloggers to make $30,000 online in 2012. Perhaps you’re trying to get your business in the black or are up for a big promotion. Don’t just settle for a common “been there, done that” mediocre goal. Choose something that inspires awe in your observers, and then develop a creative plan to MAKE it happen. Remember, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad lesson for those who desire to be rich: the quintessential question isn’t “can I afford it?” but rather “how can I afford it?”

One contemporary business example of this point is beautifully illustrated in Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk. He writes about how he was challenged with redefining the wine industry, an industry that is known for being stodgy and conservative, as he took the helm of his dad’s company. He was a rule breaker, was passionate, and he enthusiastically embraced technological advances that allowed him to spread his message, virally. Consequently, he found his unique voice, established a loyal following, and tremendously built that brand to heights few expected and in record time. His goals helped him prove the skeptics wrong.

Setting Unrealistically High Goals Motivates Yourself

I read that the median response for a recent Gallup poll was that a person would need to make at least $150,000 per year to be considered rich, which caused me to reflect on when I was most recently challenged on my definition of rich by Felix Dennis, founder of Maxim. He claims that a household with a net worth of less than $2 million is uncomfortably poor. He was one of the few people that I know of who would classify someone with a net worth of $1.7 million as not just “poor,” but “uncomfortably poor.” Something about that is revolutionary and motivating.

While we can argue over arbitrary classifications, such as who is rich or who is middle class, a more productive use of time is to determine what goals inspire you. What is worth spending the next 3-5 years realizing? What goals are worth emptying yourself into, fully? When I wrote about the senior and founding partner at a law firm who only made $30 his first month in his practice but now earns $30 million per month, I am speaking about someone who emptied himself into his practice. It is very likely that had he given up on his goal to be in business for himself and fight corporate conglomerates, he would not have realized considerable success. When I listen to him describe the high-stakes litigation that he was involved in and the many obstacles he had to overcome, I can tell that he not only had a strong sense of self but also knew precisely what his objectives were. Otherwise, it would have been too easy to waiver, fold under the pressure, or settle before he it pay dirt. Quite honestly, he still has even loftier goals (beyond his Gulf Streams). That’s what keeps him striving for excellence. It keeps him relevant.

When you set goals that are beyond what you think are realistic, you are bringing those enormous dreams into the reality of your mind. You are speaking to those dreams and declaring that they have deadlines to be realized in your life. This is significant because whether you think you can or think you cannot, you’re right!

Give more consideration to what pursuing grand goals effects in you. Jim Roth said it this way

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

Setting Unrealistically High Goals Motivates Others

Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal. – Walt Disney

Lame goals don’t inspire!

Has anyone tried to motivate you to achieve an uninspiring goal? Me too. Did it work? I didn’t think so. Daniel Burnham said “make no small plans; they have no magic to stir men’s souls.”

There’s something very powerful when someone sets a goal so awesome that it causes you to reevaluate what’s possible in your own life. In Your Do Over Guide, I shared the story of a venture capitalist who by his mid-twenties had already retired twice, was one of the youngest CEO’s of a publicly traded company, and was making phenomenal investments that returned more in a day than most people got in a year. When I heard his next goals, I got motivated for myself. I began to remove limits that I didn’t even know existed in my own life. Moreover, I began to enlist the help of like-minded individuals, and they were kind enough to oblige me. Now, their help was fully voluntary, so what was the draw for them? It was the goal: the goal was big enough engage others meaningfully.

Let’s be very serious: if your goal is so small that you can achieve it on your own, then it’s likely not big enough. However, if you dare to dream bigger, you stand to accomplish a fraction of your potential.

Closing Thoughts

People often caution dreamers. They tell us to “get back into reality. It’s not that simple. We haven’t accounted for all of the variables. What if we FAIL?” Here’s my response to every Eeyore:1) ”I love and believe in the beauty of my dream,” 2) in fact, the only way that I will achieve my dream is to stop being realistic, 3) everyone starts somewhere, 4) over-analysis can create paralysis, 5) failure is a matter of opinion, 6) failure is temporal, 7) failure is instructive, and 8) failure unleashes creativity. I’m not afraid of trying and failing. I’m afraid of not trying. Sometimes the greatest risk is not taking one.

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed. – William James.

This is an interesting point and one that I wrestled with in writing this post.
I agree. My desire is to RAISE the level of expectation from the common to the uncommon. Performance is largely belief-base, and I believe many people would be surprised what they could accomplish if they had more faith.

Reminds me of Steve Jobs when he was presented with the first prototype of the now famous iPod. The proud engineers managed to bring down the size of the music player to fit the palm of your hand, which at that time was quite an achievement.

Jobs wanted to shrink the size even further. The engineers protested saying there really wasn't any space left to shrink the music player.

Jobs apparently threw the device into a fish tank to the horror of the engineers and pointed to the bubbles coming from it and said, there's space. Shrink it.

Of course, they did manage to find ways to shrink the size! Jobs set goals unrealistically high, believed it can be achieved and followed through.

Very interesting post. For me I have had this backfire. I have set some really high goals and unfortunately not reached them. It has been really discouraging. I actually find I do better with setting goals I actually think I can achieve and know I can. I get your point though. Sometimes you need to reach for the stars to really get that fire of passion going. It's all a balancing act I guess for each person. Everyone is different.

Miss T, you get it precisely. I know setting big goals and not meeting them is discouraging. Suppose you are in high-stakes commercial real estate where you go a LONG time without closing a single transaction, then let's say you get a $20 million deal. Are you a failure? Not by a long shot. I'm sick of uninspired goals. I'm done with the mediocre. That brings no value to me, for there is little to NO GROWTH. I hope you are with me

That's a great point Krants! People would be surprised how achievable big goals are if they methodically break them down in bite-sized chunks. Some of the things that I considered huge in my own life were down-right intimidating on the surface but not nearly as frightening when strategically mapped out. With you having senior management experience, I'm sure developing or reviewing these high-level plans are routine, but this is not necessarily a skill that many have. It can be developed though!

Excellent content – as you always provide and inspire me to come again and again. You are on my RSS reader now.
Also, there comes a root valuable to heighten your altitude at realty bazaar is at present the sole prospect to the investment.

I myself have been thinking about setting really high goals for myself. I'm pretty happy with the way my blog has been going but haven't really thought of pushing myself even more. I'm sometimes more of a "status quo" kind of person but I don't know why..!

Thank you. Well, I'm very happy things are going well for Young and Thrifty. It's definitely been one of my three new guilty pleasure websites (I LOVE reading about rental property, as Joe will attest to).

If you are looking for help in 2012 for Y&T, just hit me up. Cheers, and thank you for the comment.

Hi Maria,
Since you're an academic, I can only imagine how high level some of your goals can be. For example, if you are writing a grant proposal, you have to come up with a solution to a problem from an angle that is novel, sufficiently robust, scientifically sound, reproducible, etc. That's a tall order, and in biomedical research the sad truth is that many times we publish articles that just a few people care about, and often mostly to satisfy job requirements.

I love SMART goals too, but they are just starting points. I'm finding "low hanging fruits" have their place, but they are not the end game, not for the dreamer, the revolutionary, the world-changer. The "R" (realistic) aspect of SMART goals stops people for stretching themselves every time.

Yep, you are right about proposals and papers. It is the same in social science (in fact bioscience and social science share some epistemic properties) – few people read us and fewer understand us even when many cite us. I never do SMART goals; I said elsewhere that I consider this to be a ploy by Business Schools to kill imagination and drive universally (so no one has what BS professors don't).

Echoing what KrantCents said above, a series of small goals planned out to a larger objective is a middle way. Big huge goals work for *some* people, but I purport that the large majority of people get discouraged easily by failure.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that we often let the origins of our schools of thought dictate our directions. I love when people employ unconventional methods that are not extremely complicated but are deemed revolutionary because it flies in the face of the establishment. This isn't rebellious as much as it is creative. My former advisor did that with his research and was rewarded handsomely. Anyway, I can totally appreciate your apprehension to any convention that limits your options. I think limiting of options is important for some people: those who would never start anything. However, if you can develop your own strategy and are okay with exploring the fullness of your imagination, there's so much more you can do by removing your constraints.

I do think that only having big goals can get very discouraging. I suppose another "middle way" would be to have a blended approach: having big AND smaller goals, much the same way you would plan out many cool projects. If someone is consistently successful but not able to achieve that one EPIC objective, does that mean that he will consider his life a failure? Well, I certainly hope not. I hope the desire to achieve it will continue to push him and inspire creativity to the point that he achieves that one as well.

Nonetheless, I get what you are saying overall. If you are easily discouraged by failure, then setting unrealistic goals can do a job on your morale

I hear that when you goal set you are to write down your goals and say them out loud everyday. I think it is supposed to become your mentality and what you live and breathe. Otherwise, what good are goals if you just forget them the minute after making them? They have be goals you can live by though….sometimes goals can be too intimidating to even shoot for—you sometimes have to take baby steps.

That's a great aspect of personal finance and development. It is personal. Some people love a more conventional approach, and there is nothing wrong with that. Setting Unrealistic goals is a way to unlock you inner visionary, whic is particularly important if you are short-sighted or lacking ambition.

Those are awesome destinations to hike. I'm sure hiking the Himalayas was exhilarating.

I don't think unrealistic goals work for me either. If it takes too long or if it is too difficult then those goals are usually forgotten.
I see your point about visionary goals though. I'll think about this and see if I can set some crazy goals.

That's fair. It may not be advantageous to completely change a strategy that is already working. I think it all depends on your personality and your aspirations. Some people are phenomenal at execution but aren't necessarily the visionaries whereas others are great at vision but suffer when bringing it into fruition. You seem to already be moving in the direction of stretching yourself. Retiring by 40 is a pretty ambitious goal for most people. Cheers!

I have a 2 fold strategy. I set realistic goals followed by stretch ones. This helps with 2 things. The first goal- when attained- boost confidence and instils a sense of accomplishment thus motivating me to push towards the stretch target.

I'm a fan of doing this too. I love creating actionable items that I can knockout, but I hate stopping there. Sometimes the "lower-hanging-fruit" goals are parts of the stretch target for me too. That's why having the stretch goals, those that are bigger and very inspiring, are so key to my moving forward. They unify the smaller efforts. I like your strategy. It definitely works for me.

very inspiring.. I really enjoyed reading your article and I definitely agree about unrealistic goals. I think unrealistic goals could make a person able to touch the best point in his/her life. I personally have an experience about setting a goal that I think it's impossible to reach.. and it's achieved now

Love this! My first six months freelancing, I wanted to make $750 a month. I thought it was a little high, but I reached that goal, and set a new one: $1000/month. When I reached that one, I went even higher, and am surprised at my ability to actually attain the goals I set for myself!

How do you talk sense into someone who sets unrealistic goals that are so out there that they are not comprehensible? Setting unrealistic goals can also give the goal setter an excuse when they fail also. I know someone who sets goals for himself that are so wildly unrealistic that everyone he shares them with knows immediately that he has no chance of coming even close to hitting his goals. Wealth goals that would dwarf the combined net worth of the top fifty wealthiest people on earth. He has no vehicle to grow forward but expects me to believe and coach him accordingly. He comes to me because everyone else has totally laughed him off. I have never seen him make more than $150k. I want to see him make $500k before he starts talking to me about his five billion dollar goals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieix4TpDjD0 Motivational Speaker Matt Episcopo Being A Motivational Speaker – This means that you really have to take your job seriously as a lot of people are paying you to teach them a thing or two about the issues that concerns them. This is why aspiring keynote speakers should keep track of these helpful points to consider whenever delivering a public speech to be able to catch the attention of possible clients as well that may book them for seminars or get their professional help for their personal problems.